FOBAB

The annual Festival of Barrel Aged Beers is rapidly approaching (Saturday November 8th).  I'd encourage you guys to grab a ticket and come on out.  Barrel aging beers is a unique way to handle beer.  Both the wood and prior use of the barrel can create flavors unattainable through other methods.  

Chicago is an important town in the history of barrel aging beer, and this years FOBAB will host more than 100 beers from some of the country's best brewers.  The Illinois Craft Brewers Guild, which Half Acre Beer Co is part, host the event and put on a good time.  

You can read about it and buy tickets here.

See you there for some deep dark beers.

Gabriel

Half Acre Beer Co

Chicago, IL

Beer Taxi

We donated a keg to an event called “Brews Not Bombs.” It took place while we were in Colorado so we missed it, but apparently it was a huge success.

Anyway, Josh, the guy I worked with for the event brought the keg back to me using his spectacular bike taxi. He makes his living this way, and designed his ride himself. I’ve never seen him around town, but I think it’s a great way to get around and something more folks should think about.

It's Happening

We managed to get it all apart thanks to a bunch of good people who broke their ass over the course of a week. We had a lot of fun, worked hard and got it all done on schedule. Many thanks to Dave and George, Matt and the rest of the guys from Ska, the truckers and anyone else who had a hand in getting it all here. We also appreciate the folks from Jewel who let us stage our flat-beds in their parking lot.

(Take a look at that purple Peterbilt that cruised across the country with our tanks.  I wished I could have seen it mid-route gettin' it done)

So, it’s here. We have a disassembled brewery in our brewery to be. It’s kind of a mess and makes any fiber of OCD that I may have go absolutely haywire, but all this has a process and it can’t be forced – even though we’d like to work 20 hours a day until it shined and could churn out delicious beer.

Working in a construction site is a little weird, but being part of that change is exciting. The biggest thing is juggling running our business while launching this new phase to our business. A lot of the time we’re filthy from head to toe, so it’s good we’re in the beer industry and can generally conduct all aspects of business while covered in dirt. That’s part of the reason it’s great to do what we do.

Moving Mountains

Half Acre Beer Co is on the move. We officially moved our belongings to our new home 4257 N. Lincoln Ave. We only had time to cram everything in a corner because we flew out to Denver to decommission all the brewing equipment that we’ll be trucking back to Chicago.

(I’ll include a couple photos of the new space in its disheveled mess)

Both Matt and I used to live in Colorado. It’s a great state that has a lot going for it. We flew into Denver on Monday morning and immediately rented a car and drove to Durango in the Southwestern part of the state. Fortunately it was timed perfectly with the changing of the Aspens. Each stand was more attractive than the next. I was continually reminded of all those Michigan radio spots that Tim Allen narrates about nature’s playground, etc. Those commercials kind of drive me crazy, but also make me want to go anywhere and drive down country roads with covered bridges, see the trees explode with color and get lost. This scratched that itch completely.

I could go on and on about the nature found in Colorado, but time is tight for the amount of work that needs to be done before all four of the tractor-trailers are loaded and ready to drive for Chicago.

I’m going to let the pictures do most of the talking here, but lets just say that the days have been long and the task is daunting. There is a huge amount of equipment that needs to be broken down and packed accordingly. This has been a great way to familiarize ourselves with the details of everything we bought. I’ll feel very connected to all this stuff after this trip, and the fact that it’s coming from a great bunch of guys (Ska Brewing Co) that have been incredibly helpful, we also feel very good that it all comes from our once home state of Colorado.

Time to work.

Steps

I have to say that things are moving forward at a fairly quick pace, I think.
Everyone asks us when we’ll be up and running, and my general response is “as quickly as possible.” It’s vague, but as honest as I can be. There’s a long list of things that have to happen in order for us to be brewing, and many items on that list are directly tied to the hard work of our city, state and federal friends that are aiding, approving, granting, accepting and lifting various things so that we can legally conduct all the forms of business we hope to conduct in this space.

Matt and Tommy were in Colorado all last week brewing on our new brewhouse. They had a great time and were able to acclimate themselves to the nuances of that particular system, and brew with the guys that have been using it for the last handful of years.

We’ll all go out in about a month to load it on numerous tractor-trailers, and then haul it back to its new home on Lincoln Ave. It should be quite a spectacle when the big trucks roll down the street to drop these huge vessels.

We’ve had Kevin, our friend, construction contractor and designer in the space a bunch over the last couple of weeks. He won’t do much in the brewery area other than pour new floors, put in some new drainage and some drywall, but he will be the one to make our retail area look how it needs to. That part of the project is a serious endeavor in and of itself. The above CAD floor plan is how that area is laid out now. We’ll change it completely to suit our needs.

Anyway, check out our events section and be sure to come out for some stuff – we have a bunch planned over the next couple months.

Have a great Labor Day Weekend


Gabriel
Half Acre Beer Co
Chicago, IL

Beer Column

I started writing a beer column for UR Chicago Magazine called:

"Beer Classics, Complexities Of A Simple Pleasure"

Check it out HERE.

4257 N. Lincoln Ave

4257 N. Lincoln will semi-officially be the new home of Half Acre Beer Co. We made it over the community meeting hurdle, so that’s big. This meeting was the opportunity for the community to come out and express concerns, ask questions and learn a bit more about what it is we would like to do with the space. The concerns all fell into basic categories: Are you opening a bar? Will you be blocking streets and alleys with large trucks? Will there be odor that will make my life hell? Will you bring the riff-raff? We had acceptable responses and won the vote. In the end we had only one vote against the project – that was from the one self-pronounced beer advocate. We offered attendants some beer on their way out, and I’m not positive, but I think he grabbed one.

So, off we go to the zoning commission for, we hope, the final zoning approval. All this is very exciting for us. Our new brewhouse arrives at the end of September, so our biggest goal is to have the space prepared enough so that it can receive it and not have to move it later. This stuff is big and heavy.

We’ve been hearing from a lot of people who have offered to lend a hand. Thanks to all of you. It would be great to have all of you helping us achieve our goals, scurrying about the city with blueprints, jack-hammering floors, leveling fermentation vessels, etc. We’ve been thinking of how to accept help, so if we’ve received a note from you, be on notice, the call could come – maybe in the middle of the night.

In the meantime, the summer pushes on. It’s been ungodly hot in our current 4th floor hideout. Our intern looks like Christian Bale in The Machinist, but he continues to get it done four days a week.

And speaking of….. Our intern, Chris, is a tech-savvy student at Columbia. He put a “Widget” on our Myspace page. This widget will make it easier for you to stay in touch with what’s going on with Half Acre Beer Co. You can go grab this widget and easily install it on your IGoole home page, your own Myspace or other places that people do these sorts of things. Frankly it’s over my head, but those of you who are more tech-savvy, are, I’m sure, more familiar with the world of “Widget,” and how they get information closer to your fingertips.

So, there it is, 13,000 sq ft of brewery space and a widget. Isn’t that something?

Gabriel
Half Acre Beer Co
Chicago, IL